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\f0\b\fs24 \cf0 U.S. Posts 2nd Hottest Year on Record
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by Andrew Restuccia\
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\cf0 Jan. 7, 2016 \'96 The United States posted its 2nd-hottest year on record in 2015, government scientists reported Thursday. That extends the streak of warmer-than-average annual temperatures.\
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the annual average temperature in the contiguous United States last year was 54.4\'b0F, which is 2.4\'b0 above the average in the last century. The only warmer year in the United States since record keeping began in 1895 was 2012, which clocked in at an average of 55.3\'b0, NOAA said.\
Thursday's announcement comes less than a month after 195 countries, including the United States, reached a landmark deal that for the first time compels nearly every nation to begin taking steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions.\
NOAA said 2015 was the 19th consecutive year that the annual average U.S. temperature was above the 20th century average. There also were 10 extreme weather and climate events, each of which resulted in more than $1 billion in damages, as well as 155 deaths, the agency said.\
Even though U.S. temperatures didn't set an all-time high last year, scientists have said the global average would likely set a new record. NOAA scientists have previously forecast that 2015 is "extremely likely" to top 2014 as the warmest year on record, when temperatures from around the planet are taken into account. The World Meteorological Organization has reached a similar conclusion. NOAA and NASA are slated to unveil 2015 global temperature data on Jan. 20.\
But many conservatives have said some forecasts issued a few years ago had called for even higher temperatures by now; they argue that the discrepancy means climate change isn't as serious as many people think.\
Republican hard-liners, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who questioned the "objectivity" of climate science during a hearing he chaired late last year, are eager to reject the mainstream consensus. But other GOP politicians have increasingly sought to sidestep the issue \'97 instead focusing on attacking the economic impacts of Obama's environmental policies. Neither climate change nor the Paris climate change deal has been a major theme for the Republican presidential contenders.\
Polls increasingly show that the public thinks climate change is a problem, even if most people rank it as a low priority. Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders have been aggressively painting Republican presidential candidates as out of touch and anti-science.\
"I think it's another demonstration that global warming is real and causing substantial damage across the country through these extreme weather events, and that the Republicans are very mis-positioned on this," John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, told POLITICO.\
Sanders, who introduced legislation last month to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions and put a price on carbon pollution, said the data about the changing climate is irrefutable.\
"The debate is over. 15 of the last 16 years have been the hottest ever recorded. Climate change is real and is caused by human activity," he said in a statement. "This planet and its people are in trouble. Unless we get our act together, we will see in years to come more droughts, more floods, and more extreme weather disturbances."\
NOAA said December temperatures set a record for that month, with an average temperature of 38.6\'b0, 6.0\'b0 above last century's average, to break the previous record of 37.7\'b0 set in 1939. Record warmth engulfed the eastern half of the nation, where 29 states had the warmest December on record.\
"For all of us, it\'92s a reminder," said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. "It\'92s a reminder that not only is this real, but it\'92s here today.\'94\
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\cf0 .politico.com/story/2016/01/us-posts-second-hottest-year-on-record-217442}